Vatican claims Wikileaks do not reflect views of Holy See

The HOLY SEE is in ruff waters account of their own doings like a ship in a sinking mode. TO SILENCE THE TRUTH TO PROTECT THE IMAGE is far from honesty. At least ONE RCC leader in Ireland brought the truth to light. Sorry I cannot say that for the HOLY SEE's CEO.

Carroll09, I think the latest reports from Ireland on the sexual abuse of children and the failure of the Roman Catholic Church to deal with it and all the others should convince even such a staunch supporter of the Vatican that they betrayed the innocent victims.

Carroll09, I'm currently watching a documentary about the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. It's on UTV, a Northern Ireland TV station, and the facts are shocking. Cardinal Law of Boston was named and it seems he protected 200 priests who had sexually molested children by moving them from place to place. A lawyer, a former priest, said he had to leave the priesthood because of how the Catholic Church through its legal representation, but under Church direction, always tried to evade responsibility. If you are really sincere in making the truth available may I suggest you get your hands on this documentary. Just google UTV on the internet and search for the documentary on the subject. The title of the programme is, " The Resurrection of Brendan Smyth ".

Carroll09, I will add that the facts contained in this report reveal that the Roman Catholic Church through its status as a recognized state, i.e., the Vatican, expose the very things that substantiate my allegations of shameful conduct and behaviour which is the very antithesis of Christianity. And the legitimization of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany was accomplished through the Concordats signed with those evil regimes in 1929 and 1934 by the Vatican.

Carroll09, I submitted a lenghty response to your claims but the Moderator has not seen fit to display them. So I will briefly address what you claim. The Encyclical issued by Pope Pius XI to which you refer, Mit Brennender Sorge, did not directly address the anti-Semitic actions of the Nazi's and it was couched in what could be called " diplomacy speak ". Albert Einstein's words that you quote prove my point in that he said, " Only the Catholic Church protested against the Hitlerian onslaught on liberty . . . . ". I am not convinced that the Catholic Church was the only religious body that protested, but I acknowledge it did so however inadequately. Pope Pius XII failed to speak frankly and clearly to the " faithful " in Germany and Austria and give them guidance on what they should or should not do in relation to obeying those in authority over them, specifically in the persecution of the Jews which was " legalized " in German law and was implemented almost immediatly on the Nazi's taking power. I am not talking here about the extermination camps, but am referring to the siezure of property and other denials of human rights. But it was the Vatican, the state face of the Roman Catholic Church, that gave international credibility to the Fascist regime of Mussolini in 1929 and the Nazi dictatorship Hitler in 1934. Any objective student of history knows that the spirit of anti-Semitism was entrenched in Roman Catholicism for about 1800 years and the fact that the words " the perfidious Jew " was in church liturgy up to the middle of the 1960's only being removed after the II Vatican Council under the direction of Pope John XXIII. Finally, O never said the Pope Pius' actions were shameful as you will see if you check my words. My actual words were, " THe behaviour of Roman Catholicism was not one of glorious behaviour but one of shameful conduct.

The RCC needs to ban Catholics from the USA and other countries from participating in our immoral wars. We're killing...everybody, in wars promised to last for many more years, while fortunes are made.

We go to Midnight Mass every year on Christmas Eve for the beautiful music, the nostalgic scent of incense, the ceremonial bows and nothing more. Like burning logs in the fireplace with a CD of Palestrina putting up the tree. Catholicism is to us an integral part of The Holidays.

...You tell us, Pacifist, that his behaviour was shameful - well the Jewish leaders who mourned Pope Pius XII's death did not agree: "During the ten years of Nazi terror, when our people passed through the horrors of martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the persecutors and to commiserate with their victims", said Golda Meir (Israeli representative to the U.N./ future prime minister of Israel); "With special gratitude we remember all he has done for the persecuted Jews during one of the darkest periods in their entire history”, said the President of the World Jewish Congress, Nahum Goldmann; "More than anyone else, we have had the opportunity to appreciate the great kindness, filled with compassion and magnanimity, that the Pope displayed during the terrible years of persecution and terror", said Elio Toaff, chief Rabbi of Rome; or finally, "Only the Catholic Church protested against the Hitlerian onslaught on liberty. Up until then I had not been interested in the Church, but today I feel a great admiration for the Church, which alone has had the courage to struggle for spiritual truth and moral liberty" - so said one Albert Einstein. So, if Pope Pius XII was guilty of shameful conduct, I dread to think how we might rate the conduct of the rest of the world during the same period.

Contrary to what you assert, Pacifist, no Catholic should be ashamed of the Vatican's reaction to Nazism. Even before World War II started, the future Pope Pius XII, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, in 1935 told 250,000 pilgrims in Lourdes that the Nazis were "in reality only miserable plagiarists who dress up old errors with new tinsel. It does not make any difference whether they flock to the banners of social revolution, whether they are guided by a false concept of the world and of life, or whether they are possessed by the superstition of a race and blood cult". In 1937, Pope Pius XI wrote an entire encyclical ("Mit Brennender Sorge") condemning the ruling powers in Germany. Of the 44 speeches that Pacelli made in Germany as Nuncio between 1917 and 1929, at least 40 denounced Nazism or Hitler's doctrines (That is according to Orthodox Jewish Rabbi & diplomat Pinchas Lapide). In 1940 Hitler sent von Ribbentrop to the new Pope Pius XII to attempt to curb the anti-Nazi stance he had taken as Cardinal Pacelli - von Ribbentrop told Pope Pius about the inevitability of a Nazi victory. After hearing von Ribbentrop out, Pope Pius opened a ledger on his desk and listed, in German, the persecutions carried out by the Third Reich in Poland, listing date, place and details of each crime. Not to mention the fact that Pius XII requested that visas be granted generously to those fleeing persecution, or his use of his personal funds which paid for documents helping Jews to escape the Nazis by passing as Christians. Or, indeed, the fact that the Pope ordered religious institutions (including convents, monasteries, hospitals, universities) to shelter the Jews; or the fact that his summer residence, Castel Gandolfo, sheltered over 3,000 Jews...[continued]

Who can remain surprised at the attitude of the Vatican, ie., the Roman Catholic Church. Protecting her own interests is at the heart of it all - those interests being assets and personnel. Remember Cardinal Law? Isn't he now in charge of a bascillica in Rome. For PhlutiePhan's attention - I am Irish, live in Ireland, was once a Roman Catholic, but I am aware of the crimes many Catholic clerics have perpetrated against helpless children and today in Irish Central there is a report on a former Irish priest who was one of those criminals. There is no conspiracy against the Catholic Church but a conspiracy of its own making. It was the Vatican - the Roman Catholic Church - that gave Mussolini and his facists legitimacy in Italy in 1929 and Hitler and the Nazi's in Germany in 1934. Pope Pius Xll never gave adherents of the Catholic faith in Germany instructions that they were not to commit the murders that many of them went on to carry out. The history of Roman Catholicism is not one of glorious behaviour but one of shameful conduct.

Vatican dimplomats are not "ex cathedra". They make mistakes. However, the anti-Vatican hubris of the American delegation only reflects the prevailing view of the "American" Catholic Church. This is troubling since it appears that there is a unified effort against the Vatican not only from the liberal American government but a segment of the American Catholic Church which appears to be in league with government policy. When Hitler came to power, this was a real concern in Germany and Austria in support of national socialism.